Modern, high-speed document scanners are employed in various environments to scan a sequence of source documents printed on physical media (typically paper) to yield a corresponding sequence of electronic, scanned images. This is often called “document conversion,” but it should be understood that the document conversion process does not destroy the source documents.
One application for document conversion is found in the financial industry. Years ago, financial documents such as checks, invoices, payment advices, vouchers, drafts and credit card charges physically entered and cleared a presentment process involving financial institutions and clearinghouses that ultimately resulted in the transfer of money among the financial institutions and their accountholders. Unfortunately, physical presentment is relatively error-prone, time-consuming and expensive. Accordingly, a superior alternative to physical presentment has been sought for decades.
A few years ago the alternative finally arrived in the form of electronic presentment. Now, most if not all financial documents are converted into electronic, scanned images as a first step in electronic presentment. Thereafter, the scanned images are transmitted through a presentment network of computer systems at the financial institutions and clearinghouses to clear and ultimately cause money to be transferred among the institutions and accountholders. The source documents are usually archived temporarily for evidentiary purposes, then destroyed.
Though electronic presentment (as well as other processes that make use of document conversion) are now predominantly “paper-free,” document conversion itself still typically involves the handling of physical media and is thus subject to the practical complications that documents printed on physical media present. For example, the media on which the documents are printed may not be pristine. The media may be stapled, hole-punched, folded, crumpled, stained or otherwise compromised. It may be torn or cut such that a portion of the document is missing. The document itself may be a photocopy of an original and therefore may contain artifacts from the original that impact the document in addition to any damage to the media on which the photocopied document is printed.